What does Dreamtime mean?

Answer 1

Indigenous Australians, referred to as Aboriginals, refer to the Creation time as 'the Dreaming,' or 'Dreamtime.' The Dreamtime lays down the patterns of life for all Aboriginals.

The belief is that every human exists eternally in the Dreaming. The eternal part existed even before the life of the individual begins and continues to exist after death. Both before and after life, the spirit-child exists and becomes initiated into life by the act of being born.

The Dreaming includes the belief that the developing fetus receives its spirit during the fifth month of pregnancy, or when the mother first feels movement within her womb.

Part of the Dreaming includes the belief that long before humans, animals, or plants come into being, their 'souls' exist; they all know they will become physical, but not when. And when their existence comes into being, the last of those souls is born as a human. That human becomes the acting guardian or custodian to the natural world around them.